stitchwhich | Hmmm... heraldic ethics. As it were (Reply)

I am considering withdrawing the heraldic title submission I've got up right now. I put it in with sort of a light-hearted joy, thinking it was both obscure and yet not (heralds being the geeks they are) and that it'd really only be seen by fellow heralds, at least in my kingdom, so it was fine, I reasoned, for it to be slightly 'naughtly'. (It is "Luddite Herald Extraordinary", which some of my friends here would know is totally apt for me.) But a commenting herald, whose comments don't seem to register in our internal letters, said something that brought me to a halt. He said that "Luddite" is very commonly used in the computer-guru world and would jerk nearly any IT-type Scadian right back into the modern world.

I don't want that. A mild smile, a slightly lifted eyebrow or even a twinkling eye is one thing but jerking someone completely out of the medieval isn't something I want to be guilty of causing.

So even though I've documented the name (a woman with that as a surname is registered in her church's records in late-period England), I am weighing the wisdom of allowing it to go forward to Laurel. I really didn't know it was used all that often in the IT world. Which, of course, merely underscores the fact of my own computer-ignorance.